2019 Hyundai Elantra Eco

It is really interesting to see how Hyundai has become scared of their own courage in putting excellent quality cars on the market that look different than the competitors, and be succesful with that. The knee-jerk reaction seems to have been to go dial back that passion that was so abundantly visible in those successful products. You can see that with the Sonata and you can see it here. Think back to the versions of both cars 2 generations back, how stale and boring they were. Then the previous generations hit the market and man, did they ever make an impression.

Common sense would have told them to not change a winning team and stay the course, but that is not what happened. The best people from the teams that created success were allowed to change to have other companies take advantage of that creativity, and the lesser were told to get the lion back into the cage and make it look more conservative. Sounds like a metaphor for politics in this country, right?

Don’t get me wrong, this Hyundai Elantra is not bad. The built quality is excellent of course and the car does everything right, is attractive and will sell, but it definitely NOT as leading in design as it’s predecessor was. The lines are not as dynamic, the surface sculpture is not as intriguing. They are all just cars, all pressed out of the same materials and doing the same stuff. I would think the ones that stand out in a positive way while maintaining or even leading in quality and fit and finish, would be the market winners, but it takes courage to think like that, courage that most of the time time stems from being in a down position like Hyundai was at the time. Now success has made them cautious. I hope not for too long. I would love to see what would be possible with passion in this segment.